History Anime / MasterOfMartialHearts

* DarkerAndEdgier: What less charitable viewers may see. While the work could be seen as a type of deconstruction, the fact that they use [[spoiler:[[AndThatsTerrible sex slaves as punishment]], [[PlotHoles handwave registration, law and money]], [[{{Anvilicious}} Take That after Take That]] at the [[StrawLoser fanbase and the rather heavy handed]] DownerEnding]], it can come off as an inmature "{{Deconstruction}}" of a typical Anime genre.

** [[spoiler:Not that the guns helped Miko or Natsume who actually trie to use them.]]

After saying goodbye, Aya then receives a similar text message saying that she has been entered into the tournament in place of Miko, and so begins her reluctant quest to defeat a handful of cosplay-themed [[ActionGirl Action Girls]] including the aforementioned flight attendant, a nurse, a policewoman and more. With clothes-destroying physics and kung fu skills at her disposal, can she overcome her opponents or will she fall into an inescapable world of darkness?

* ActionGirl: All the girls in the tournament, though Miko is arguably a FauxActionGirl.
* AFriendInNeed: How Aya gets herself mixed up in the tournament.
* ApologeticAttacker: Aya's teacher practically telegraphs all her moves while she begs Aya to either block or stay down. [[TheMoreYouKnow If only Aya studied her chemistry textbook]]...

* [[spoiler:DeathEqualsRedemption]]: Aya's mother.

* JamesBondage: Haruki held hostage.

* NotJustATournament: A big time (and convoluted as hell) case of this. [[spoiler:Every girl who loses the tournament is {{Mind Raped}} into an EmptyShell state before being conditioned into sexual slavery and sold. The entire thing is being conducted as a CycleOfRevenge by the daughters of two sisters who wound up on the losing end of a similar tournament organized by Aya's father, which Aya's mother won. The two cousins want the same thing their mothers got put through to happen to Aya as revenge against both of her parents, and they don't care about what happens to the other contestants.]]

* PlayingToTheFetishes: Every flavor represented. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d at a fast food [=McDonalds=] BlandNameProduct named "{{Moe}}".

* RetiredMonster: [[spoiler:Suzuko Ichisima]].

* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Apparently if there's an open spot in the tournament, any girl who has made a wish and can fight gets a text message inviting them. Subverted with [[spoiler:Aya, as she was the true target all along]].
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Battle 5 is basically made up of this, from the lady in red who brutally strips Aya psyche bare [[spoiler:which inadvertently [[BerserkButton flips Aya]] into [[UnstoppableRage "pure evil"]] and impossible for the psychic to read. Cue [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown the most brutal]] [[KilledOffForReal unforgiving beatdown in the whole contest]]]]. After Aya wins, she [[WhamEpisode basically lives in this trope]] at the hands of [[spoiler:Miko, Natsume and Haruki as they reveal the Martial Heart was [[GambitPileup a massive plot for revenge against Aya for her parents' sins against their mothers]]. Just as Aya is about to be killed by her "friends"]], Aya's [[spoiler:''own mother'']] shows up to deliver a speech of her own, revealing the true circumstances of the Martial Hearts while [[spoiler:casually [[NeckSnap killing Haruki, Miko and Natsume with one hand]]]].
* {{Unperson}}: After [[spoiler:Miko]] withdraws from the tournament, the only people who seem to remember her existence are Aya and Natsume.

* [[spoiler:WasItAllALie]]: [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb Yes, yes it was]].

* YouBastard: Begins [[SarcasmMode subtle]], with the depiction of an Otaku audience at a Moe Idol show, [[ThisLoserIsYou watching the Panty Fight]].

* [[PlayingToTheFetishes]]: Every flavor represented. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d at a fast food [=McDonalds=] BlandNameProduct named "{{Moe}}".

* [[{Fanservice}} Playing To The Fetishes]]: Every flavor represented. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d at a fast food [=McDonalds=] BlandNameProduct named "{{Moe}}".

* PlayingToTheFetishes: Every flavor represented. {{Lampshaded}} at a fast food [=McDonalds=] BlandNameProduct named "{{Moe}}".

* CatGirl: Aya out-Moes the Meido with a costume that adds cat ears and tail.

* [[spoiler:WasItAllALie]]: [[PhineasAndFerb Yes, yes it was]].

** Near the end it almost feels like the {{Ecchi}}/PantyFigher genre's version of FunnyGames. "Oh, what's that? You like girls fighting each other with lots of {{Fanservice}}? Well how about ''now'', you sicko!?"

** [[spoiler: Near the end it almost feels like the {{Ecchi}} genre's version of FunnyGames. "Oh, what's that? You like girls fighting each other with lots of {{Fanservice}}? Well how about ''now'', you sicko!?"]]

** [[spoiler: Near the end it almost feels like the {{Ecchi}} genre's version of FunnyGames.]]

Aya Iseshima is a schoolgirl who ends up walking into a brutal battle between a {{Miko}} and a flight attendant. After saving the Miko with her kung fu skills that her mother taught her, Aya learns from both her friend and the Miko (coincidentally named Miko) the story of the "Platonic Heart", a mythical jewel that can supposedly grant any wish to a girl who acquires it. Miko further says that she found herself entered into a tournament to acquire the Platonic Heart with a cell phone text message from an unknown source.

In short, think of this as a streamlined ''IkkiTousen'' without the thin veil of a ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' plot behind it.

* AndThatsTerrible: You know Female Fighting Tournaments Anime is a terrible idea because the loser [[spoiler:is always made a sex slave...for syndicate regulations, apparently]].

* DarkerAndEdgier: What less charitable viewers may see. While the work could be seen as a type of deconstruction, the fact that they use [[spoiler:[[AndThatsTerrible sex slaves as punishment]], [[PlotHoles handwave registration, law and money]], [[{{Anvilicious}} Take That after Take That]] at the [[StrawLoser fanbase and the rather heavy handed]] DownerEnding]], it can come as an inmature "{{Deconstruction}}" of a typical Anime genre.

* [[spoiler:DownerEnding]]: '''And HOW!''' There's nary a character who is not dead, insane, [[spoiler:in some kind of slavery]], or ''worse''.
* EmptyShell:[[spoiler:The losers of the tournament are transformed into mindless sex slaves and are sent into slavery. Every. Single. ONE!]]
* EvilAllAlong:[[spoiler:Aya's "friends" and love interest]]

* GambitPileup: [[InfoDump Infodumped]] in the last episode: A trio of sisters who helped organize the tournament wanted Aya to join them, but they were being manipulated by a man who looked like Haruki, a boy Aya liked. Except that boy turned out to be a [[spoiler:body double for the real Haruki]] who was working with [[spoiler:Natsume and Miko who were secretly acting as Aya's friends]]. And they were trying to get revenge in the name of Natsume's mother, who lost her vocal chords when she lost the last tournament to Aya's mother, who in turn entered because Natsume's grandfather had started the whole damn thing.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Miko [[spoiler:blaiming Aya for destroying the other contestans life and mind after defeating them...when she and the others were the ones who literally {{Mind Rape}}d them to idiocy after they were too weak to defend themselves. And also reconstructed said tournament for vengeance in the first place]].

* InsaneTrollLogic: The explanation of [[spoiler:Miko, Haruki and Natsume]] for the Tournament is so mindblogging stupid it would leave you in the same capacity as [[spoiler:the former contestants]].

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Really, you can't help but to cheer at [[spoiler:Aya's mother dishing the oh so very deserved brutal beatdown in Chapter Five]].

* RevengeByProxy: [[spoiler: The whole point of the series, e.g. having the main character beaten, mindraped and possibly sold into sexual slavery as a final ''Screw You!'' to her still living mother and her currently dead father, responsible for having dealt this very same fate to the still living mother of one of the villains]].

* SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands: While Aya's is explained [[spoiler:by being done by Miko and the rest]], it never makes sense how they recruit the rest of the girls, except for the {{Handwave}} explanation bellow. The requisites for enter are, after all, kind of limited for most of the population.

* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive" Apparently if there's an open spot in the tournament, any girl who has made a wish and can fight gets a text message inviting them. Subverted with [[spoiler:Aya, as she was the true target all along]].
* ThePowerOfFriendship: So subverted. And [[HannibalLecture deconstructed in detail by the final opponent]].
** Actually, averted since [[spoiler:it never existed in the first place and this work is not that kind of genre]].
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Battle 5 is basically made up of this, from the lady in red who brutally strips Aya psyche bare [[spoiler:which inadvertantly [[BerserkButton flips Aya]] into [[UnstoppableRage "pure evil"]] and impossible for the psychic to read. Cue [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown the most brutal]] [[KilledOffForReal unforgiving beatdown in the whole contest]]]]. After Aya wins, she [[WhamEpisode basically lives in this trope]] at the hands of [[spoiler:Miko, Natsume and Haruki as they reveal the Martial Heart was [[GambitPileup a massive plot for revenge against Aya for her parents' sins against their mothers]]. Just as Aya is about to be killed by her "friends"]], Aya's [[spoiler:''own mother'']] shows up to deliver a speech of her own, revealing the true circumstances of the Martial Hearts while [[spoiler:casually [[NeckSnap killing Haruki, Miko and Natsume with one hand]]]].

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:Aya summarily executing Natsume's mother puts her into this territory, since she wants to make sure the cycle of revenge that has driven this series is finally put to an end.]]
* WhamEpisode: Battle 5. Just... Battle 5.

* DownerEnding: '''And HOW!''' There's nary a character who is not dead, insane, [[spoiler:in some kind of slavery]], or ''worse''.

* InsaneTrollLogic: The explanation of [[spoiler:Miko, Haruki and Natsume]] for the Tournament is so mindblogging stupid it would let you in the same capacity as [[spoiler:the former contestants]].

* ChekhovsLecture: Suma's insistence that Aya study her assigned chemistry lesson. Subverted; though it would've provided clues for the battle, Aya failed to study, and her confusion at trying to recognize the called attacks distracts her from simply reading body language.

* YouBastard: Begins subtle, with the depiction of an Otaku audience at a Moe Idol show, [[ThisLoserIsYou watching the Panty Fight]].

* TorchTheFranchiseAndRun: The ending was viewer-malicious in its deconstruction. And everything ''did'' [[IncendiaryExponent get torched]], then [[StuffBlowingUp blown up for good measure]].

* NotJustATournament: A big time (and convoluted as hell) case of this. The tournament revolves around the "Platonic Heart," a mythical jewel that can supposedly grant any wish to a girl who acquires it. Every girl who loses the tournament is {{Mind Raped}} into an EmptyShell state before being conditioned into sexual slavery and sold. The entire thing is being conducted as a CycleOfRevenge by the daughters of two sisters who wound up on the losing end of a similar tournament organized by Aya's father, which Aya's mother won. The two cousins want the same thing their mothers got put through to happen to Aya as revenge against both of her parents, and they don't care about what happens to the other contestants.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Well done [[spoiler:[[NonActionGuy Haruki]]]], go in a fist fight with the near unstoppable Fighter...when you have guns.

** It degenerates to {{Anvilicious}} levels after chapter 5 and it doesn't recover.